BACKGROUND:Due to natural degradation,excellent biocompatibility and good mechanical properties,magnesium alloy has become a very valuable implant material in the biomedical field.However,the rapid degradation rate of magnesium alloy limits its further development and application. OBJECTIVE:To review the principle of the degradation of magnesium and its alloys in a physiological environment.The current research status of alloying elements selection is mainly introduced from the aspects of the safety of elements and their influence on the properties of magnesium and its alloys. METHODS:The articles were searched by using the databases of CNKI,PubMed,Web of Science and Elsevier.The key words were"magnesium(alloy),metal name(such as:bismuth(Bi),aluminum(Al)),corrosion,biocompatibility,metal toxicity,scaffold(stent)/screw"in Chinese and English.The search period was from 2013 to 2023.As a result,70 articles were applied for analysis after reading the contents of the articles. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Magnesium alloy has been widely studied in the medical field.Although some products have been applied in clinical practice,the high degradation rate of magnesium alloy in the human environment is still the main limitation of large-scale clinical application.The focus of future development is to control its corrosion rate.Alloying is a kind of method to improve the corrosion resistance of magnesium alloys,and various properties can also be improved by adding different alloy components.However,simple alloying cannot satisfy the pursuit of diversified properties of magnesium alloys.To develop multifunctional magnesium alloy products with excellent performance,it is necessary to combine various optimization methods,such as alloying and surface modification,to make up for the shortcomings of their respective methods in the future.In addition,the alloy structure updating with preparation process improvement is combined to enhance the properties of magnesium alloy.